Hibs told VAR made errors in brutal draw vs Dundee Utd as sending off for Swansea City loanee deemed wrong

Head of referees Willie Collum has admitted that VAR was wrong to intervene and award Dundee United a penalty against Hibs.

Mykola Kukharevych was also sent off in the game that eventually ended 1-1 after Jim Goodwin’s side converted the crucial spot-kick. David Gray's home team were leading 1-0 in the final minute of the match that took place at the start of this month, as opposing defender Emmanuel Adegboyega went down in the box claiming he had his shirt tugged by Swansea City loanee Kukharevych.

It wasn’t an incident that had been spotted by on-field referee Colin Steven but VAR official Greg Aitken reviewed the play and recommended the whistler to look at his monitor. Then the penalty was given, Hibs’ striker was sent off and the club were denied a big win.

They sit bottom heading into the Premiership clash with Dundee on Saturday. The incident has already been flagged up by the SFA's Key Match Incident panel, with a majority of three out of five arguing that the on-field decision should have stood and that no punishment should have played out.

Speaking on the SFA's monthly VAR Review show, Collum agreed with the panel's verdict and says similar scenarios will not even be looked at VAR in the future. He said: "Before we start, I think it's important to acknowledge that the (VAR) check takes far too long.

“We want to reduce our timings when we are looking at incidents and this is a case where we would try and make improvements in this area by making it quicker. Can we say that the Hibs player pulls the Dundee United player?

“Of course he does and I don't think anybody watching this clip would argue with that. But we also need to listen to our stakeholders, the KMI panel and what people are saying. And the overwhelming response has been that this is not for VAR.

"If it's given on-field, of course it's supported but our take on this moving forward that it is off the ball. Some people will debate it's impact because the ball is knocked back across and could that player have got there and it's then a very difficult decision for the VAR and the referee to make.

"There could be instances where we would need to look at that where the secondary decision would be very, very key but listening to a lot of people about this incident, it would probably be in our best interests moving forward to leave this incident alone and for VAR to not get involved.

"It's very difficult because nobody can deny that the holding takes place. But the impact is the key question for us here. There is nothing in the laws of the game about impact but we also need to look at 'where do we draw the line?'

"If somebody pulls someone 20 meters off the ball do we look at that? Or if somebody scores a goal and somewhere there has been a minimal contact, is that right to punish it? These are all things we need to consider."